There was 1200 CFS out of Iron Gate, and my observations are from an open
boater. Rattlesnake: the gravel/rock bar on river left has been eroded, so
the river is wider through here now. In the past, the conservative run has
been down the left hugging the bank. This year it was more technical and
shallower. The entrance, also, it seemed to have changed, and we had to
enter for center, and that either bump over a row of rocks about a third of
the way down or skirt them on the right and then work river left hard, From
a canoeists perspective, the holes and the ledge on river right looked much
larger along with larger diagonal waves. These looked like they could
potentially dump you into the hole behind the large rock.

Trench: you could say this whole section has changed. False Trench is much
mellow then in years past.. River scouting Trench, you would not have
guessed the route, as in the past the typical way was far river left. We
did scout, and discovered that the far left route put you right into a nasty
rooster tail rock. For the open boats, the route seemed to be right of
center of what looked like very aerated water, but was actually quite solid.

Thinking back, the other big change was at the takeout at Wingate. The
gravel ramp there now ends in a rather decent sized eddy. This is rather a
rough description, but after all your asking for ancient memories! I could
only find one picture of Rattlesnake to jog it, but it was taken from the
pullout up on the bluff.



We boated the Cabarton back in 2000, before my wrist problems started, and
it was exhilarating. I think we were at our limits, but wow!



Carol



"Bill Tuthill" wrote in message
...
krueger wrote:

A group of us open boaters were on the Klamath 4th July week, and
normally
we see rafters and kayakers, but rarely canoeist. Curly Jack CG, Sarah
Totten CG are full, commercial rafters at Trees of Heaven, Happy Camp,
Curley Jack, and Ferry Point put-ins. This year we saw one youth group
of 3
rafts, and one guided raft on the Happy Camp run, and one group at Trees
of
Heaven, and the camp grounds were basicly empty... Unheard of! To our
surprise though, the surf wave at School House is now considered a "park
'n
play" spot, and was occupied with lots of kayakers.

We were on the Forks o' Payette over July 4th, and it was interesting
that some runs on the river were virtually devoid of people, whereas
others such as Staircase, the Main Payette, and Cabarton were swarming.
However the best runs we did IMO-- the Gorge where Walt Blackadar died,
the South Fork Boise (not technically a fork o' Payette) and the
upper South Fork near Lowman-- had no other boaters on the river!

We still enjoyed having the river to ourselves, but it was almost too
quiet!

It's nice having solitude, though!
The park'n'play aspect of recent kayaking has reduced river touring use,
and perhaps the emphasis on Xtreme kayaking has caused moderate people
to lose interest in the sport.

Added note: Rattle Snake and The Trench have seen some changes from our
last visit 2 years ago.

Can you describe how they changed?